Five Feisty, Feminist, Fictional Heroines We All Wish Were Real

Five Feisty, Feminist, Fictional Heroines We All Wish Were Real National Womens History Month and International Womens Day is a day we honor real women.  But sometimes our heroines are the fictional characters of books and movies.   Here are five feminist heroines we all love. 1) Mulan While most Disney princesses were swooning over spinning wheels and pining for True Love’s First Kiss, Mulan was unsheathing her sword, defeating the Hun army, and single-handedly saving China. You don’t get much more badass than that. And she was rocking the lob look long before it was declared “the hairstyle of 2016”. Mulan isn’t just born talented, though. In what is probably the single-best movie montage of all time, we see her struggles to become a soldier, battling pain, exhaustion, bullying and even a full-out rejection from her sneering boss: “Pack up, go home, you’re through.” Mulan fails over, and over, and over again. Does she ever give up? Not once. Instead she buttresses her resolve, and smashes a challenge everyone declared impossible. She proves not only that women can beat out men at even the most “masculine” of tasks, but demonstrates the power of resilience and self-belief. 2) Hermione Granger Let’s be honest, Hermione was the real hero of Harry Potter. She identifies the Basilisk, turns back time to save Sirius, makes the polyjuice potion and organises Dumbledore’s Army, all while Harry is moping around shouting at people that his scar hurts. Hermione wears her smarts with pride, and shows that being a girl-nerd gets you far. She also don’t need no man, refusing to simper after an international sports player even when he takes a shine to her. When she’s not being smarter than literally everybody else, Hermione is crusading for justice and fairness. She’s the only person who bothers to try to free the enslaved house elves (a metaphor for the women’s suffrage movement, natch) and she refuses to be ashamed of her ‘mudblood’ race. A bookworm activist? Inspiring indeed. 3) Lisa Simpson While we’re on the subject of super-smart campaigners with kooky hair… Lisa Simpson may only be eight years old, but she’s got more sass than most people three times her age. When she’s presented with a misogynistic Malibu Stacy  doll which spouts lines such as “don’t ask me, I’m just a girl!” Lisa doesn’t just reject the ideology â€" she puts into motion a plan to produce her own line of feminist dolls designed to inspire and empower children everywhere. We should all be like Lisa; confronting the things we dislike with attempts to change it. We have more power than we know; just look at how Lisa uses her beauty pageant win to push for humanitarian causes. 4) Éowyn Come on, she takes down a freakin’ Nazgul. Enough said. Éowyn always wanted to win glory in battle, but being part of the Medieval-esq Lord of the Ring’s world, she was pretty much told to “stop thy twattling and get thee back into thy kitchen” (not an actual Tolkien quote). Éowyn doesn’t believe in letting other people limit her though, so she grabs a horse, dons some armour, and rides off to war anyway. She is promptly confronted by the terrifyingly evil Ringwraith King, who swings a huge sword at her while boasting that “no man can defeat me”. Instead of letting fear stand in her way, Éowyn throws off her helmet, swishes her golden locks, and gives the ultimate feminist war-cry: “I am no man.” The moral of the story? Just because other people have failed at something doesn’t mean you won’t succeed.  Never underestimate anyone. 5) Lisbeth Salander The girl with the dragon tattoo is crazy smart, crazy sassy, and crazy hardcore. She’s a genius with computers, mathematics and chess; smashing gender stereotypes with the same ease she hacks into a top-security system. Lisbeth is a complex and imperfect character, who displays the same contradictions and vulnerabilities we all harbour. She shows that our past might make us stronger, but it also leaves scars. True, she is also selfish and occasionally criminal. But she is a crusader against powerful, abusive, and sexist men. She beats them at their own game, torturing her rapist and swindling millions out of a corrupt billionaire. If something needs to be done, she stands up and does it, rather than relying on someone else. Beth Leslie writes careers advice for Inspiring Interns, who specialise in matching candidates to their dream  internship. Check out their  graduate jobs  listings for roles. Image credit.

Can You Write a Tech Resume With No Experience?

Can You Write a Tech Resume With No Experience?Do you know what to write a tech resume with no experience for? That is the question we would like to answer. If you are interested in a career in technology, chances are, you need to have some technical skills to be able to excel in that career.That means that if you have no or very little experience, you are unlikely to get a job in a top position without at least some technical skill. However, technical skills are not the only thing you need to be able to do. And by 'only' you do not mean 'less'.You have to be creative in your job search and learn about all the things that could help you get a job as soon as you have the skill. A perfect example of this is when the person applying for a job has written his resume, but does not have any experience in computer programming. That person has obviously not done much research on how to make a resume. It may be a mistake on his part, but it is also true that there are many people who have no experience in making a resume, but they can still come up with a very good one.There are also people who have no experience in jobs in the first place. Those people have the ability to do a great job, but they cannot do it right away without experience. Experience does not always give you power, but it can give you a better chance to be hired.So here is a short list of other things that you should be prepared to include in your tech resume with no experience:* If you want to work as a computer programmer, you must have the knowledge and the confidence to actually do the job. This means that you have to know the way how computers are connected, working with computers, computer programming and operating systems in general. The knowledge in these topics is a sure sign of someone who knows what he is doing.* If you have any experience in handling computers, you must also have knowledge in handling computer viruses. In addition, you must be able to install and remove software, configure, and update systems. Being able to upgrade your PC's firmware is very important to most computer programmers.You can come up with a Tech resume with no experience. In addition, you can also improve your chances of being hired.

Government Relations Resume Writing

Government Relations Resume WritingGovernment relations resume writing is an excellent way to help your career along. This is particularly true if you plan on finding employment in government. However, it's not quite as easy as it seems to make a resume that is effective in convincing recruiters that you're ready for the job. But, it is possible to do so with some effort and good advice.First of all, you need to understand that no matter how strong your resume may be, it is very likely to fall flat if you don't get to the heart of the issue from which you are addressing it. So, the first thing you need to do when you're considering creating a good government relations resume is to identify your strengths. Do you excel at 'organizing'?Do you have good interpersonal skills? Have you been part of any teams that worked collaboratively? Are you self-motivated?You must know what you can do to help a company, whether they are an enterprise or a corporation, as well as individuals that are i n a position to hire and fire people, as well as the strength of your personality and your work ethic. If you are going to be addressing issues such as relocation and accommodation that can be sensitive, you also need to be aware of how you can handle questions about this in your resume.Next, you need to address the negative. How do you propose, you will contribute to your employer? This is an important part of your resume, especially if you are relocating or need to move to a new location.Finally, you need to pay attention to the words you use in order to ensure that you draw a direct attention to the point you are trying to make. Use keywords that will work to draw in the eyes of recruiters.Take a good example and modify it to reflect your needs. That way, it can highlight your achievements and make you stand out. Be sure to keep it professional and simple, and you will be better able to attract attention.Hopefully, by now you have learned more about resume writing. Please take a look at my resume writing tips page for additional information and techniques. Good luck!

Top 5 business maxims that need to go - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Top 5 business maxims that need to go - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog It aint what you dont know that gets you into trouble. Its what you know for sure that just aint so. Josh Billings (or Mark Twain or Artemus Ward or) Much well-known business advice is sadly obsolete but can still be found in articles, business books and, not least, in daily use in the workplace. It seems that some companies are still guided by thinking that is sadly out of date if it was ever true to begin with. The worst of these old maxims are not only wrong, theyre bad for people and bad for business. Businesses who use them are making their employees unhappy and are harming the bottom line. Heres my pick of the top 5 business maxims in serious need of an update with a suggested replacement for each. UPDATE: Now theres also a Part II post with 5 more horrendous pieces of business advice. Old maxim #1: Failure is not an option Meaning: We absolutely, positively must succeed. Guess what: No matter how many times you repeat this maxim, failure remains an option. Closing your eyes to this fact only makes you more likely to fail. Putting pressure on people to always succeed makes mistakes more likely because: People who work under pressure are less effective People resist reporting bad news People close their eyes to signs of trouble This is especially true when its backed up with punishment of those who make mistakes. Peter Drucker provocatively suggested that businesses should find all the employees who never make mistakes and fire them, because employees who never make mistakes never do anything interesting. Admitting that mistakes happen and dealing constructively with them when they do makes mistakes less likely. Also, failure is often the path to new, exciting opportunities that wouldnt have appeared otherwise. Closing your eyes to failure means closing your eyes to these opportunities. New maxim: Failure happens. Deal with it. Old maxim #2: The customer is always right Meaning: The customer is king. We satisfy our customers every need. No. No, no, no. This tired business maxim often means that loyal hardworking employees are scorned in favor of unreasonable customers. It also, ironically, results in bad customer service. I recently wrote a post outlining 5 reasons The Customer Is Always Right is wrong, concluding that sticking to The customer is always right makes employees unhappy and that unhappy employees almost always give customers bad service. New maxim: Happy employees means happy customers. Old maxim #3: Never be satisfied Meaning: You can never be satisified and complacent in business. Youve always gotta want more. This is a bad mistake which rests on a very fundamental misconception, namely that being satisfied means that you stop acting. That satisfaction breeds complacency and therefore that a happy, satisifed company will be passive. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, a constant sense of dissatifaction in an organization sends one powerful message: Were not good enough! The irony is that this results in worse performance. People who constantly appreciate all the good in their organization and express their satisifaction create a much more positive working environment characterized by more: Motivation Energy Self-confidence Happiness at work This is not about closing your eyes and pretending things are great if theyre not. Its about appreciating the fact that people in constant states of dissatisfaction erode an organizations will and ability to act. The trick is to appreciate what you have and still aim for more. Replacement: Always be appreciative but never complacent. UPDATE: but never complacent added thanks to Colin G.s excellent suggestion. Old maxim #4: Nice guys finish last Meaning: We cant be too nice in business. In fact, being nice may hinder your career and impede results. Thats just not true, of course we should be nice at work. This doesnt mean that you have to be nice to all of the people all of the time, but it means that you absolutely can be a nice person and succeed in business. I previously wrote about jerks at work and why theyre bad for business. The conclusion: Unpleasant people hurt the bottom line. In a networked world reputation matters, and it?s more important to be generous and likeable than to be ruthless and efficient. New maxim: Nice guys get the job done. Old maxim #5: Grow or die Meaning: A business is either growing or dying. A business cant be successful if its not growing. Its interesting to see how growth has been elevated to an automatic good, questioned by very few businesses and executives. Growth certainly has some positive effects especially because it creates new possibilities and challenges for an organization and its people. Im not saying that growth is bad but that growth isnt always right for every business. Sometimes a business might be better off spending a quarter or a year not growing but simply consolidating existing business. Consequently not growing or even shrinking does not automatically represent business failure. Thats what Semcos CEO Ricard Semler meant when he said this: There is no correlation between growth and ultimate success. For a while growth seems very glamorous, but the sustainability of growth is so delicate that many of the mid-sized companies which just stayed where they were doing the same thing are much better off today than the ones that went crazy and came back to nothing. There are too many automobile plants, too many airplanes. Who is viable in the airline business? If someone asks me, where will you be in 10 years time?, I havent got the slightest idea. I dont find it perturbing either if we said, look, in 10 years time Semco could have 500 people instead of 3,000 people; that sounds just as interesting as 21,000 people. Id hate to see Semco not exist in 10, 20, 50 years time, but what form it exists in, what business its in and what size it is are not particularly relevant. Growing also entails its own risks, especially fast growth on borrowed money. This almost killed Patagonia in the early 90s. Founder Yvon Chouinard says this: It was back in 1990 or so and we were growing the company by 40 to 50 percent a year and we were doing it by all the textbook business ways adding more dealers, adding more products, building stores. Growing it like the American dream, you know grow, grow, grow. And one year we predicted 40 to 50 percent growth and there was a recession and all the sudden we only grew 20 percent. And at the same time, our bank was going belly-up and we had cash-flow problems and it went to absolute hell. And I had been the person who had never bought anything on credit in all my life. I always paid cash for everything, and to have to call someone and say, Im sorry, I cant pay my bills this month, was killing me. And I realized that I was on the same track as society was endless growth for the sake of growth. Thats when I decided to put the brakes on and decided to grow at a more natural rate which basically means that only when our customers want something do we make more, but we dont prime the pump. New maxim: Grow when you gotta. Wrap-up The scary thing about maxims is that theyre often accepted unquestioningly because they come in the shape of old addages which are repeated a little like nursery rhymes used to educate children. That means its not enough to oust the old maxims we need to replace them with new ones that are guaranteed to bring better results for people and for the bottom line. Here they are at a glance, the tired maxims and the suggested replacements: Tired old maxim New maxim Failure is not an option Failure happens deal with it The customer is always right Happy employees means happy customers Never be satisfied Always be appreciative but never complacent Nice guys finish last Nice guys get results Grow or die Grow when you gotta Im working on another post called, in a fit of almost supernatural creativity, five more business maxims that need to go. Do you know any that belong on the list? Tell me about it in the comments. If you liked this post, I think youll also enjoy these: Top 5 business maxims that need to go Part II Lets go vampire slaying Why The Customer Is Always Right is wrong The Seven-Day Weekend by Ricardo Semler my review Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

How to Make Your LinkedIn Profile Stand Out

How to Make Your LinkedIn Profile Stand Out A LinkedIn profile service can help you stand out. LinkedIn profile development  is an often overlooked aspect of the job search or career change. The most popular business social network is vastly underused and unappreciated. Most individuals in business dont understand how to make it work for their benefit. You may not need a  LinkedIn profile writer  to find value throughout the social network. Heres how to stand  out on LinkedIn. Get Grouped With more than two million LinkedIn Groups in existence, theres bound to be one (or hundreds) within your industry. You can use Groups to meet others in your industry and develop your reputation as an expert in the field. The more value you add to a group, the more likely new opportunities come your way. Reach Out LinkedIn is not a place for the faint of heart. Business networking is no time to be shy. Put your profile out there and get in the game. While adding an acquaintance on Facebook can be construed as odd in certain circumstances, you shouldnt carry over personal social media protocol to LinkedIn. The more people you connect to on LinkedIn, the better off youll be. Pro Tip: Changes in anything work related make the perfect time to reach out (for you or them). Dont Go Connection Crazy While you should reach out to just about every person you know on LinkedIn, you shouldnt be cold-calling strangers. There is no prize for having the most connections on this social media platform. The number of people in your LinkedIn network isnt relevant. The importance of your network lies in the quality of people youre connected to and how youve proven your value to them. Focus on finding a common ground with individuals you want to connect with. If youve known someone in the past, theres your commonality. If youve never met someone you wish to connect with, work to build a connection through a common interest or background, especially when cold connecting. Open Viewing Season If someone views your profile on LinkedIn, this is a warm lead to opportunities. Whether these opportunities come to fruition or fade away is up to you. A profile view can lead to hires, career advancement and more. Its also a way to begin connecting with someone in your industry. Pro Tip: Make sure you keep your visibility settings open too so people can see when you view them and potentially reach out. Develop Your Voice and Expertise One of the easiest way to establish your credibility and expertise in an industry is by publishing a post on LinkedIn. The platform gives users an opportunity to comment on upcoming changes in the industry, changes in the market and more. Developing your voice can lead to enormous opportunities on the business social media site. A professional  LinkedIn profile service  can help you create a profile that speaks to your background and expertise.

Avoiding Problems on a Maintenance Resume

Avoiding Problems on a Maintenance ResumeAs a worker at any organization, you can expect that your job title will be your way of advertising your responsibilities and value to the company. The role in which you are employed may also be your most memorable. Well-written maintenance resume materials will help to define the level of work that you are doing, so it is better to give yourself and your skills a proper quality-statement, or you will risk becoming one of those chosen few that are always 'sabotaged' by the boss. Here are a few suggestions for writing an effective maintenance resume.Prescriptive resumes are aimed at evaluating your skills and presenting an outline of your work that can be viewed on maintenance records. The most basic of such 'handbooks' can be constructed with the following elements: ENDPARAM - key skills to be kept, qualifications and skill levels, skills transferred to management or team, types of responsibilities you expect, type of activities and commitment s you undertake, or maybe only obligations and extras - long-term goals. Getting a basic piece of writing together can make for a more positive experience and provide motivation when seeking work.Avoid writing a person's work history, or his skills and experience being attaching to work which will be done for only a month or so. The resume should only contain your skills and objectives for your work that is expected to last a long time. Do not use your qualification or skills to justify your job, and only point out your work results and achievements. In addition, if your job description includes components like teaching, consulting, or managing, leave out those characteristics that are irrelevant to your job.Maintenance careers usually involve several different job responsibilities. You can tailor your resume to suit each responsibility and aim to highlight all of them to a potential employer. Your skill sets should be described and defined so that the company can assess whether or not the skills that you have been truly appropriate for the job, or if they are simply an additional detail that can be eliminated in the production of the paper work. You can also work on developing levels of responsibilities for your job level. Your responsibilities should range from the basics to any sort of project which may require additional expertise. You can list additional information that may not be necessary for the job, but could be for your reference. For example, if you are looking for employment to take care of a lawnmower, leave the fact that you like to play with lawnmowers out of your resume.Avoid writing your maintenance career on a part-time basis, since your standard level of dedication to the job is typically different from other workers. Remember to include your current job title in your maintenance resume, although you may choose to use a pseudonym if you want to avoid any harassing phone calls from employers that may be less than pleased. Although job descri ptions are a standard part of the maintenance resume, your experience may not be, so you may have to describe your work experiences in some other way. However, take the time to make your repair, maintenance, office, or general office work come across as well-rounded and self-confident.Maintenance resumes should include the types of papers, tools, supplies, or fixtures that you may need to help with your job. It may help to provide some of your general repair supplies and the extra tools that are necessary for your work. Include your organization's logo or design, if you are affiliated with an organization. It will give the employer a way to determine if the maintenance professional they are considering is indeed a part of the team that will do a good job.

10 Corrupt Things Bosses Have Done in the Workplace

10 Corrupt Things Bosses Have Done in the Workplace It’s not a secret that workplaces aren’t always friendly placesâ€"there’s literally a successful movie franchise called Horrible Bosses. In a recent post, the app Whisper, which lets users anonymously post secrets, published a list of corrupt things they saw their bosses do. With the gender wage-gap still a massive issue around the country (here are the states where it’s the worst), it’s not a surprise that many of these things were sexist and awful. Here’s whatever you’d call the opposite of a greatest hits for boss behavior. “Pull food that fell in the trash can out, put it back on the plate, and serve it to a guest.” “Demote my friend for dating a girl he hates.” “He took me in the bathroom, offered me blow, I declined, he kissed me.” “Without looking at an application she said to throw it out.” “Asked me to hack into his partner’s account to see if he was planning on leaving the company. I did it, then blocked all emails that talked about that.” “Talk to another Director about not hiring someone who was overqualified because he was unattractive and it was going to be a bad look.” “He told a former employee that she would make a good porn star.” “Steal money from the register then try and fire me for covering her shift while she was smoking meth in the back.” “Deny several people our services (rental agency) because she didn’t want to help women with ‘too many’ kids, unmarried women, minorities, or anyone who ‘looked too poor’ find a home.” “Cheat on hi s girlfriend. Then ask me to arrange plans for his side chicks. Ugh.” MORE: Which Horrible TV or Movie Boss Is Your Office Stuck With?